Assad lied to his henchmen and fled to Moscow

This was reported by Reuters, citing more than 10 people familiar with the situation.

According to sources, Assad did not tell his younger brother, Maher, the commander of the army's elite 4th Armored Division, about his plan to flee Syria. However, one source said, he managed to fly to Iraq and then to Russia.

The dictator also failed to inform his cousins, Ehab and Eyad Makhlouf, of their plans. According to Syrian and Lebanese officials, when rebels seized Damascus, Ehab and Eyad tried to flee to Lebanon by car but were ambushed. One of them was shot dead and the other wounded, but there is no official confirmation.

The report said Assad assured about 30 army and security chiefs hours before his escape that they would soon receive Russian military support, and urged ground forces to hold out, according to a commander who attended the briefing.

That same day, the Syrian dictator, as the source notes, after finishing work, told his office manager that he was going home, although in fact he went to the airport.

Assad also called his communications adviser to ask her to come to his house to write a speech. However, when she arrived, she saw that no one was home.

According to Reuters sources, Assad was in Russia on November 28, the day after the rebel offensive. There, he asked for military intervention, but the Kremlin did not want it.

"He told his commanders and associates after a trip to Moscow that military support was coming. He lied to them. The message he received from Moscow was negative," stressed Hadi al-Bahra, the leader of Syria's main opposition abroad.

Syrian rebels capture Damascus

A large-scale military operation by opposition forces against government troops took place in Syria. The Syrian opposition launched an active offensive on the morning of November 27 and, after two days of clashes, took control of 56 settlements in the provinces of Aleppo and Idlib and approached the outskirts of Aleppo.

On November 30, Russian aircraft carried out airstrikes on the city of Aleppo, the center of which had been taken by Syrian rebels, for the first time since 2016. At the same time, Russia promised the Assad regime additional military assistance.

On December 7, Syrian opposition forces announced they had taken control of the city of Daraa, located in the southwest of the country. Later, the rebels said they had entered the country's capital, Damascus, and declared the fall of the government of dictator Bashar al-Assad.

On December 10, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said that Syrian dictator Bashar Assad is "safe" in Russia.